Secure@Source Version 2: Data Visibility, Risk and Financial Impact

I don’t think I’m overstating anything by calling the next 10 years “The Decade of Data” – data of every variety, volume and use proliferates to meet the insatiable demands of analysts, executives, marketers and researchers. Rich data sets provide the means for insights and answers to complex questions that create competitive advantage or research breakthroughs. There should not be any employee out there that isn’t using data to somehow improve their customers’ experiences, whether that is healthcare, retail, public sector, financial services or beyond.

Conversely, the growing mass of data has risk. The risk resides in the sensitive data, holding health, financial, privacy and intellectual property information that each organization must protect. Without proper handling, sensitive data can create liability, brand and revenue impacts if disclosed accidentally or through ineffective management, controls and policies. Securing sensitive data is challenged by growing and persistent threats, data growth and dispersion, and byzantine privacy laws and industry regulations. 2015 breaches provided clear evidence of the growing and menacing threat to organizations’ sensitive data.

What we are doing for securing data just does not work in this data age. Current security controls and processes remain important, but they have clearly demonstrated they cannot prevent, only slow attackers. Slowing and creating hurdles for cyber criminals is one thing, but much more is needed.

Of utmost importance in this data age is recognizing and managing the foundation of what should be driving security planning, prioritization and monitoring. Sensitive data visibility and risk are the foundation as security decisions and investments are focused on the ultimate goal of attackers…the data itself.

Data Security Intelligence

Data security intelligence provides the solution organizations need to understand what sensitive data they have in traditional databases, Hadoop and the Cloud. Where is the sensitive data? How is it distributed across the organization, geographically and functionally? Moreover, data security intelligence empowers organizations to know its risk by analyzing the sensitive data based on cost, protection status, classification, proliferation and protection to create risk scores—scores that help organizations prioritize and plan how they will keep their vast data stores secure. This foundation creates a focus on what should be protected; the sensitive data, versus the network, application or device.

Informatica Secure@Source

With Informatica Secure@Source, the visibility and risk scoring of sensitive data helps all meet their responsibilities in the organization for safeguarding data. Executives can track risk trending, security management and teams can focus controls, polices and processes on where they are needed most. IT can more effectively prioritize and allocate resources to security implementations that target real risks. Compliance teams can effectively audit adherence to industry and privacy regulations. Data management teams can be assured that new data integrations and migrations do not increase the risk of their data stores.

Data is the foundation for excellence in operational efficiency, revenue generation AND cyber security. Cyber security requires the visibility and data security intelligence to align controls, processes and policies to a data-centric approach.